Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  ‘I just think she might be able to help me,’ Rhonda said. ‘Did you know she was an illegal immigrant?’

  ‘No,’ Gillie said. ‘I didn’t ask for any papers when she applied. She’s a trustworthy sort of kid.’

  ‘You pay her cash?’

  ‘She only works part time,’ Gillie said. ‘She’s okay. She pays her taxes.’

  They were soon joined by Kim, who had changed into tight jeans and a light shirt.

  ‘Can we go somewhere private?’ Rhonda asked. ‘Are you still staying at Bronte?’

  ‘I must leave the place by the end of next week,’ Kim replied, ‘but I stay some nights. With my boyfriend . . .’ Rhonda caught her eye.

  ‘Let’s go to Bronte,’ she said. ‘I have a key.’

  ‘Who gave it to you?’

  ‘Harry’s father,’ Rhonda said, getting off the bar stool.

  ‘I want the truth,’ Rhonda said as Kim prepared filtered Javanese coffee in the kitchen of Harry’s house. ‘It’s very important because Harry Cardinal’s father is in Jakarta. He may be in trouble.’

  Kim was silent, her face impassive. The repetitive dull thud of the surf could be heard.

  ‘I want you to tell me about you and Harry. He never was your boyfriend, right?’

  ‘Good friends,’ Kim said, nodding as she spoke. She handed Rhonda a coffee.

  ‘But Hartina was his real lover, correct?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Don’t fuck about, Kim! Someone asked you to play this little role of girlfriend, isn’t that so?’

  ‘What do you do? Some TV story?’

  Rhonda stood up and began pacing up and down the kitchen like a ship’s captain on the bridge. ‘What really happened to Harry?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he give any warning he would be leaving?’

  Kim shook her head.

  ‘Did he pay you to make up that story about being his girl?’

  Kim looked up.

  ‘Harry gave me some money just before it happened.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two thousand, maybe a little more.’

  ‘Kim . . .’

  ‘I can’t remember, exactly.’

  ‘Why did he give that sort of money?’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Indonesia.’

  ‘Why the money, Kim?

  ‘He said he might go away,’ she said. She began to sob.

  ‘And that you had to pretend you were his girlfriend?’

  Kim pulled out a handkerchief from her jeans pocket.

  ‘Did Hartina ask you to help out, too?’ Kim gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘Do you think Harry is dead?’ Rhonda asked.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Kim wailed.

  Rhonda sipped her coffee and stared at Kim.

  ‘Who gave Harry the money for this house and the yacht and the MGB?’

  ‘I tell you! I don’t know!’

  ‘Kim, don’t lie!’

  ‘It’s true. I was with him and Hartina . . .’

  Rhonda thought she had caught her again. ‘Where?’

  ‘He always went to the illegal places . . .’

  ‘But the Americans – didn’t they help him with cash and things?’

  ‘The Americans?’

  ‘The ones that visited you and Harry and Hartina,’ Rhonda said, bluffing.

  ‘They may have given him money.’

  ‘Did Harry or Hartina tell you about that? Surely they would have been pleased to have nice cars and all those other good things?’

  ‘I’m scared of the Americans too,’ Kim said.

  ‘Which Americans?’

  ‘They come from the Embassy.’

  ‘When and where?’

  ‘They came here maybe five or six times.’

  ‘Okay, but when, Kim? The last month, the last year?’

  ‘In the past few months.’

  ‘Were you living here then?’

  ‘No. I am good friends with Hartina . . .’ Kim began and checked herself.

  ‘And you came here many times to see your friends, right?’

  Kim stared at the floor.

  ‘Can you describe the Americans?’ Rhonda asked.

  ‘There was a big one,’ Kim said, ‘a very arrogant man.’

  ‘Kind of aristocratic looking?’

  ‘Yes. Always well dressed. There was another. He was short and fat. Smoked cigars and sweated a lot, specially when he came up the steps to the house.’

  ‘Can you remember the big one’s name?’

  Kim shook her head.

  ‘Blundell?’ Rhonda prompted.

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  ‘After Harry’s death, did the Americans come here?’

  ‘The same day.’

  Rhonda sat forward.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘It was after dark. Perhaps seven or eight.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They . . .’ Kim faltered. ‘They warned me not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Off the record then,’ Rhonda said.

  ‘They took some files and books and letters. They took his diary.’

  ‘Files on what?’

  ‘I don’t know. His laser work, maybe.’

  ‘You mentioned letters.’

  ‘I never read them, but I think they were family. You know, his parents. They write to him often.’

  Rhonda stood up and walked to the kitchen window. ‘Did he ever discuss his family?’

  ‘Not with me, but Hartina told me some things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘He often spoke about his father’s politics. He hated his father’s politics. Harry was more extreme . . .’

  ‘Did Harry have a good side?’

  Kim shrugged. ‘Everyone put up with his extremes because he was intelligent. He wanted to be the best and make money. Lots of money. I don’t think much else mattered.’

  ‘And how did Hartina react to him?’

  ‘They were both in the same field and very smart. Nothing else mattered to them. Only work.’

  Rhonda sat next to Kim again. ‘So they were lovers too?’

  Kim nodded.

  ‘Do you really think he’s dead?’ Rhonda asked once more.

  Kim stared at her. ‘Something had been planned for weeks. I don’t think he was murdered.’

  7

  The sky’s brief splash of black and red gave way rapidly to a pale blue as dawn broke over Jakarta. Cardinal, who had been waiting nervously in the street market behind his hotel, jumped into the front seat of Perdonny’s car when it arrived. Bani began driving east of the city rather than west to the airport.

  ‘Danger,’ Bani explained. ‘Too many soldiers; too many police at airport.’

  ‘But they’re not looking for me,’ Cardinal protested.

  ‘Anyone travelling out of the city is suspect,’ Bani said, shaking his head.

  Cardinal gave a heavy sigh. He thought of Rhonda’s call in the night. It had given him hope that Harry was alive. But where was he? Cardinal wondered. He was already thinking how he could track him down. On the one hand, he was anxious to get out of the country fast. On the other, he was tempted by the possibility that Harry was in Indonesia, possibly at the Bandung reactor with Hartina.

  Bani drove them to the heart of Chinatown, about fifty metres from the restaurant at which he had first met Perdonny. They pulled up next to a flower stall. A small boy offered Cardinal a bunch of fragrant honeysuckle flowers, and they were soon followed along one street by a dozen children. Bani led him down a narrow road of stalls and barrows alive with Chinese small-scale merchants. Minor sellers of everything from live chickens to specialist second-hand wash-basins advertised their wares. The more acceptable smells of sandalwood incense and barbecued mutton changed to that of sewage as they reached the stairs of a two-storey wooden house backing onto a small canal. Perdonny was waiting for them in the flat on the second level.

  ‘Is Chan dead?’ Cardinal asked.
He tossed his suitcase on a chair.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Perdonny said. ‘The hearse went straight to the Jakarta hospital. It has returned to the Embassy.’

  ‘Why can’t I leave?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘One of our people works at the airport. Bakin got out there in force about two hours ago.’

  ‘Then how the hell am I going to get out?’

  ‘We have a plane at Bogor that could take you to Bali tomorrow morning. Then, as planned, you would have to wait a few days until we could get you on a commercial carrier.’

  ‘Have you rested?’ Perdonny asked.

  ‘Hell, no!’ Cardinal said, slumping on a bed and kicking off his shoes. ‘I could hardly relax at the hotel’

  ‘You have done a magnificent job,’ Perdonny said, ‘even if Chan is not dead.’

  ‘I got two shots in. I thought I hit him. Maybe it’s better if he’s not dead.’

  ‘Why?’ Perdonny said, astonished.

  ‘Rhonda called me. She reckons a lot of evidence points to Harry’s still being alive.’

  Perdonny frowned. ‘Do not wish Chan alive, please. The man is responsible . . .’

  ‘I don’t give a damn!’ Cardinal interjected angrily. ‘I’m not a professional hit-man!’

  Perdonny pulled a curtain across a front window.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’

  ‘Yes, I’m famished!’

  ‘Did you take the magic cake?’

  ‘Is that what you call it? Yes, I did.’

  ‘Did it help?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have gone to the Embassy without it,’ Cardinal said ruefully.

  ‘You don’t think anyone recognised you?’ Perdonny asked.

  ‘I had the face mask and anorak on. I can’t remember anyone looking at me until I was at the bus stop.’

  ‘If everything goes well, we can have you driven to Bogor.’

  ‘And if things go wrong?’ Cardinal asked. He was tired and irritable. ‘What do I do then?’

  ‘The important thing is for you to get out of Jakarta. Bakin is looking for you.’

  Cardinal watched Perdonny intently. He had lost his appetite.

  ‘There’s a train to Bandung at three-thirty. I think this is the best way out.’

  ‘Why not by car?’

  ‘Every route out of the city is blocked.’

  ‘Then won’t they check out the trains too?’

  ‘They’ll check people getting on in Jakarta, but we can get you on the train on the city outskirts.’

  Three hours later Perdonny ordered Bani to cruise past the main Gambir train station.

  He passed Cardinal some binoculars as they waited for the guard to buy a ticket. The station was crowded with scores of workers pushing crates and trolleys. Cardinal bit his lip as he caught sight of military people waiting for trains, with hundreds of other travellers. There were two small groups of Europeans.

  ‘See those people under the clock?’ Perdonny said to Cardinal, who adjusted the binoculars. Some Europeans were the subject of activity. Passports were being fossicked out of luggage and handed to Javanese men in dark glasses.

  ‘Bakin,’ Perdonny said.

  Cardinal cursed.

  ‘If they’re checking people here,’ Perdonny said, ‘they are unlikely to be doing it along the track.’

  The guard returned with a ticket just as the train pulled into the station. There was a rush of hundreds of passengers to get on and off. Perdonny ordered his driver to beat the train to a station forty kilometres south-west of Gambir.

  They passed a block at a road leading out of the city on the main route to Bogor but did not have to move through it. Perdonny scribbled down an address in Bandung.

  ‘I’ve sent my assistant to Bandung by plane,’ he said. ‘She’ll wait for you there. We’ll have a car for you to drive back to Bogor at three tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What happens if I have to get off the train in a hurry?’ Cardinal asked.

  Perdonny began sketching a rough map of the train route. He marked key stations, bridges and tunnels and noted the approximate times through them.

  ‘If you have to get off before this point,’ Perdonny said, underlining a spot about half-way, ‘you will have to find your own way to Bogor. After that, you must wait another two hours until you’re through the mountains. To get off in the high country would leave you with little chance of making it to Bogor.’

  Cardinal pocketed the map. They pulled up at the small station where a handful of travellers, all Indonesians, waited. He shook hands with Perdonny, thanked him.

  ‘I’ll ring you at Bandung,’ he said as Cardinal grabbed his suitcase from the trunk.

  Cardinal waited ten minutes until the train rumbled in. He glanced back to see Perdonny wave from his vehicle.

  All the carriages were full, and people were spilling into the aisles. Cardinal moved through three carriages, found a place to stand, and hoisted his case into a luggage rack. The carriage was hot and stuffy with only a couple of the many roof fans working.

  Cardinal hurled his suitcase into a rack and found a seat at the other end of the carriage in a cubicle occupied by a young family. The train pulled out of Gambir. The woman sitting opposite Cardinal pushed out a firm breast and began feeding her baby. He looked out the window at a village in the jungle by the tracks. Women were washing cjothes in a canal. An old man was having his hair cut outside a hut on stilts. Cardinal began to wonder about Harry. I just might have a chance to find out if he’s in Bandung, Cardinal thought. The rush of animation and green gave way to rice fields and children riding buffalo, then the yellow-brown earth of a cemetery.

  The train curled south through alluvial lowlands of the Surakarta basin of east Java for about twenty-five kilometres to the first stop in the small town of Suka.

  He felt his stomach tighten as he spotted six militia and one man in plainclothes and tell-tale dark glasses waiting on the platform. Cardinal prayed that they would not get on the train. He craned his neck to look along the platform. The one Cardinal assumed was a Bakin officer seemed to be speaking officiously to the train guard. To Cardinal’s horror all the militia and the Bakin man began to climb aboard.

  His instincts were to make a run for it. But he judged that by the time he scrambled through the carriage the train would be well underway. Besides that, the militia carried hip-holstered guns.

  Cardinal slipped his wallet and passport into a side pocket of the suitcase and moved a few paces from it. The militia were moving down the carriages checking the IDs of some Indonesians. When they entered his carriage, he had his back to them. The Bakin officer took his time eyeing each cubicle as the militia did their job. He ignored Cardinal as he brusquely cleared people from seats in the cubicle nearest him. The officer, a nuggety, thick-necked man, came over to Cardinal.

  ‘Passport?’ he asked crisply.

  Cardinal feigned surprise. ‘My Embassy suggested I leave it with them in Jakarta.’

  ‘Which Embassy?’

  ‘British.’

  ‘You American?’ the officer asked in clipped, shorthand English.

  ‘No, British.’

  You got on in Jakarta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘An American terrorist.’

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘Which hotel you stay at in Jakarta?’ the officer asked, ignoring Cardinal’s question.

  ‘Borobodur.’

  ‘Where you go?’

  ‘Bandung.’

  The officer seemed disconcerted. He pointed to the empty cubicle.

  ‘Sit,’ he said. Cardinal obeyed. The officer sat opposite him.

  ‘Why you go Bandung?’ he asked. He pulled a silver cigarette-case from a breast pocket. He had not removed his glasses. Cardinal found it off-putting. He put his own sun glasses on and pretended to look out the window. The officer repeated the question.

  ‘I’m a tourist,’ Cardina
l replied.

  ‘Which hotel you stay at in Bandung?’

  ‘The Savoy Homann.’

  The officer clapped his hands. One of the hovering militia handed him a notepad and pen.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Carson.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Keith Harold Carson.’

  The officer repeated each word slowly as Cardinal carried him through the name.

  ‘Dangerous for tourists,’ the officer said. ‘We take you to Savoy Homann.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cardinal said flatly.

  The officer snapped orders. Two of the militia sat in the cubicle, the other four continued their work along the train.

  Cardinal reached for his cigar case. There were three cigars left. He lit one and was about to put the case away when the officer asked Cardinal to give it to him.

  ‘Gold?’ he asked as he fingered the case and played with the catch. Cardinal nodded as the Bakin man eyed the embossed initials: KHC. He glanced at his notes and handed it back. Cardinal pretended to stare out the window and puffed at the cigar. He felt he must try to escape.

  ‘You have bag?’ the officer asked him after twenty minutes without conversation.

  Cardinal shook his head. ‘I was only planning to stay a night.’

  ‘You have money?’

  Cardinal pulled a roll of Indonesian money from his coat pocket.

  The Indonesian leant forward and inspected it.

  Cardinal could feel his suspicion growing. The dark glasses hid the man’s eyes, but Cardinal could see from his facial expression that they were flicking around the carriage, probably trying to work out which case might be his. Cardinal tried to make conversation with him. When he had finished his cigarette, Cardinal offered him a cigar. The officer accepted it.

  ‘American?’ he asked, fondling the cigar as if it might be booby-trapped.

  ‘No, Cuban,’ Cardinal said with a smile. I bought these in London.’

  ‘Where in London?’

  ‘St James’s. Have you been there?’

  ‘I went with the president,’ he said arrogantly.

  Cardinal acted as if he was impressed. ‘His personal security?’

  The man nodded. ‘I toured London.’

  ‘Wonderful place,’ Cardinal said.

  A boy came around with a food trolley. Cardinal bought chicken sandwiches and a can of Coke and asked where they were from. The Bakin officer was Javanese. He asked Cardinal what he did for a living. Cardinal said he worked in advertising. He named the company his wife had worked for in London. The officer wrote it down and asked for his home address. Cardinal gave him his old address in West Hampstead and detected a slight thaw in his attitude. The two militia next to them began to sleep and an hour passed without further chat.